"Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 is a developer preview for web designers and developers to help prepare their websites for the launch of Internet Explorer 8. Some of the new features designed for developers include a developer toolbar and improved interoperability and compatibility," says Microsoft. You can download it here.

As we already know, "Internet Explorer 8 is designed to work in standard mode out of this box." This reverses the decision made earlier -- which was supported by Jeffrey Zeldman, publisher of A List Apart (below), but not many others -- to work like IE7
our
out of the box, and in "standard mode" if sites requested that.